OK, $320 an ounce or $15 – $20 per gram. I wonder why the Cannybus would be so against Prop 19 legalizing everyone to grow a home garden, share an ounce with friends, and open up a whole bunch of low cost marijuana stores in the Bay Area?

I left them a comment, which I copied below in the likely event they are too chicken to allow it to post on their page. The Cannybus is so misinformed about Prop 19. Please, for analysis and interpretation of Prop 19 by J. David Nick, the California attorney who has NEVER lost a cannabis case, who defended Steve Kubby for 200 plants, whose defense of Dennis Peron established the right to collectively cultivate and sell medical marijuana, please visit http://stash.norml.org/prop-19-is-the-best-thing-to-happen-to-medical-ma.... For my own analysis, based on my coverage of fourteen medical marijuana states over fourteen years and interviews with countless medical marijuana attorneys, see http://stash.norml.org/californias-prop-19-a-word-for-word-analysis.

But let’s not let the falsehoods stand…

“if you are a medical marijuana patient under 21, you will simply be prohibited from using medical cannabis altogether”

Complete LIE. Prop 19 controls PERSONAL use of marijuana, not MEDICAL. Anyone below the age of 21 could still get a Prop 215 recommendation.

“If you provide medical cannabis to someone between the ages of 18-20, you will be facing up to 7 months in prison.”

Partial LIE. If you provide cannabis to an 18-20-year-old who does not have a Prop 215 recommendation, you will face possible jail time… just like you would if you provided alcohol to someone aged 18-20 and they ended up harming someone.

“If you provide medical cannabis to a patient under the age of 18, you’re looking at up to 7 years in prison and monetary fines.”

MISREADING. If someone under 18 has a Prop 215 rec, you face no time. But if you pass personal cannabis to someone under 18… that is what the current law is NOW. Prop 19 is not adding the penalty for under 18; that penalty is already the law NOW. You misunderstood that in initiative language, if you are amending a statute, the existing statute is listed in plain type and the additions are listed in boldface (or sometimes underlined) type.

“it will be illegal (and punished) to consume marijuana anywhere but in the privacy of your own home”

Complete LIE. Medical rights are unchanged by Prop 19, which is carefully constructed to only affect PERSONAL, not MEDICAL, use of cannabis. You won’t be able to smoke PERSONAL pot in public… except at the places where cities grant a license for that activity (i.e., after Prop 19, there could be Amsterdam-style coffeehouses).

“if there happens to be a minor in that home during the time you’re medicating, that is a punishable infringement as well”

Complete LIE. Medical rights are unchanged by Prop 19, which is carefully constructed to only affect PERSONAL, not MEDICAL, use of cannabis. If your opposition is based on your wish to smoke personal pot in front of little kids, I don’t know what to say to you.

“renters will be required to seek the permission of their landlord in order to grow plants that they are currently allowed by law to grow with a prescription.”

Complete LIE. Medical rights are unchanged by Prop 19, which is carefully constructed to only affect PERSONAL, not MEDICAL, use of cannabis. Your indoor medical garden is unaffected by Prop 19.

“How many other “legal” acts do you have to get your landlord’s permission to partake in?”

“only a small group of big-time grow operations in Oakland (the people who wrote Prop. 19) will be allowed to grow and sell their cannabis.”

UNTRUE. Prop 19 gives every one of California’s 478 incorporated cities the right to decide if and how they wish to regulate their commercial (not MEDICAL) sales and cultivation. If you want to be able to grow and sell commercially, start lobbying your local representatives. Just because Oakland has four $211,000-licensed mega-grows doesn’t mean that your city has to do what Oakland did.

“Under the Obama administration, the Federal Government has reigned in the D.E.A. in regards to state approved medical marijuana legislation.”

MISLEADING. The DEA raids have continued under Obama; he’s just not bragging about them or issuing press releases. Ask Jovan Jackson how much the Holder Memo and Prop 215 have protected him.

If you want to severely hamstring the feds ability to go after patients, you’ll vote YES on PROP 19. It contains law that forbids any state and local law enforcement from seizing, attempting to seize, or even threatening to seize, lawfully produced marijuana or cooperating with feds who are trying to seize marijuana. The feds don’t have the manpower to go after what exists under Prop 215 now without local support; they’ll never have enough manpower to go after the cannabusiness explosion following Prop 19.

“individuals participating in any sort of marijuana related transaction (growing, selling, purchasing) would be heavily taxed by the state”

WRONG. Prop 19 contains no power of state taxation. All taxation and regulation powers reside in the localities. So if City A overtaxes pot, City B is going to offer lower taxes to compete for marijuana business. Plus, you have a lot more power to influence your city council than you do the state assembly.

“having to file marijuana-related California regulatory paperwork confessing, in writing, to multiple federal crimes that carry their own heavy fines and punishment.”

IRRELEVANT, since that’s what you have to do now to operate a dispensary collective in California today under Prop 215.

“Prop. 19 will allow individuals to grow small amounts of marijuana on their properties if the proposed plot meets an extremely rigid and prohibitive set of guidelines”

INCORRECT. The guidelines are:

- 25 total square feet of space (not “5′ x 5′” as is popularly reported, though that would work. It could be 1′ x 25′. Could be 31 five-gallon buckets (12″ diameter, pi r squared, you do the math.)

- one garden per parcel (not per person – you and roommates will have to share)

- landlord’s permission (after all, it is your landlord’s property)

“then levy a sizable (huge!) tax on every square foot of gardening space.”

UNCLEAR. While Rancho Cordova is proposing at $600/sqft tax on personal grows, it remains to be seen whether this can survive constitutional scrutiny. A government can’t tax away your rights – that was tried in 1937 with the Marihuana Tax Act and Dr. Timothy Leary sued the feds and won on the principle that you can’t be forced to incriminate yourself in order to obey a law. Poll taxes were also found to be unconstitutional because you can’t deprive someone of their right to vote just because they are poor.

However, even if a locality overtaxes personal grows, you still have the option of getting a Prop 215 rec and growing your marijuana untaxed.

“if passed would be virtually impossible to amend or overturn.”

FALSE. Prop 19, unlike other California initiatives, has wording in it that allows state and local governments to amend and modify to the law in order to better serve its purposes. The state can set up a statewide regulatory framework if it chooses, can allow for industrial hemp, and increase (but never decrease) the limits of the law

Plus, passing Prop 19 in no way prevents anyone from proposing another marijuana initiative in 2012 or any other election year.

REMEMBER: If you vote against Prop 19, you are voting with Steve Cooley, Bonnie Dumanis, the California Narcotics Officers Association, and everyone else who ever hated Prop 215 and wanted to see it shut down. Ask yourself – if Prop 19 destroys Prop 215 like this blog assumes it would, why wouldn’t those people be for it?

In a month, you can vote to become the first Western Democracy to vote to LEGALIZE MARIJUANA. Not “tolerate” like they do in Amsterdam, not “decriminalize” like they do in Portugal. In California, it shall be LAWFUL to possess a personal ounce and to grow a personal garden.

Under Prop 215, marijuana is still UNLAWFUL; you just have an exception to prosecution. But when something is LAWFUL, it is no longer probable cause for investigation.

- Your neighbor complains about pot smell? So what, it’s LAWFUL. No more visits by the po-po while you get your doctor’s note to explain.

- You’re driving down the road with an ounce in your pocket and you see a cop’s flashing lights behind you. So what, it’s LAWFUL. No more freaking out that he’s gonna find your stash.

- Those stems and pot seeds the cop sees on your car seat when he pulls you over? So what, it’s LAWFUL. No more ransacking your car to find the rest of the stash.

- Suppose you’ve actually got two ounces on you during the traffic stop. While you’re breaking the law if you don’t have a Prop 215 recommendation (whereby you could carry a half pound or more), how does the cop know? The sight or smell of marijuana is no longer probable cause to search you, so unless you give permission, how’s he gonna know? One ounce smells just like two ounces. Even if he does find it, Prop 19 gives you an affirmative defense in court that the two ounces was your personal stash.

- You just bought a bunch of HPS bulbs and Blackjack potting soil. So what, it’s LAWFUL. No more using those purchases to build a case against you as a big time weed dealer.

- You’re applying for a job and the boss asks for a pre-employment drug screen. So what, the metabolites of pot in your urine are the result of LAWFUL activity and Prop 19 forbids him from discriminating against you for that (now, if you test positive for something else, that’s a problem still…)

- Cops visit your house because you called 911 about a prowler, and you’re no longer afraid to call them because the pot plant growing in your closet is LAWFUL.

- While the cops are at your house they see your twenty pounds of marijuana. So what, it’s LAWFUL. Prop 19 allows you to have the results of any harvest at your grow site – not just an ounce, the results of ANY AND ALL HARVESTS.

You’d have to be a fool, a cop, or a dispensary owner afraid of new competition to vote against Prop 19. LEGALIZE IT!

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